To Have and Have Not: When Bogie Met Baby

It’s funny to think the movie version of To Have and Have Not (TH&HN) came about as a wager between producer/director Howard Hawks and author Ernest Hemingway!   According to TCM’s John Miller, Hawks was trying to persuade his Nobel Prize-winning author pal Hemingway to try screenwriting.  Hemingway balked, saying most of his writing was unfilmable.  Hawks wouldn’t give up that easily, boasting that he could make a good film out of what he considered Hemingway’s worst novel: “That bunch of junk To Have and Have Not.”  From what I’ve heard about “Papa” Hemingway, I would’ve expected those fellas to duke it out at that point, but Hemingway was up to the challenge.  Jules Furthman banged out a screenplay, turning “that bunch of junk” into an exciting, sexy, totally irresistible adventure with what turned out to be one of the best romantic teams in movie history, onscreen and off-screen! 

We’ve said this here at TotED before, but we’ll gladly say it again: For our money, there seemed to be no genre that Hawks couldn’t tackle with the greatest of ease, and there’s never been a more perfect romantic team than Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the latter becoming Mrs. Bogart in 1945, and staying happy together until Bogart’s death in 1957.  (Damn cancer!)   Admittedly, the kind of perfection I’m talking about has nothing to do with such trifles as linear, crystal-clear plotting.  (Clarity? We don’t need no stinkin’ clarity!)  The elements that made Hawks’ best films so entertaining and unforgettable included charismatic actors in memorable roles, whether they were big stars or character actors; zesty direction; rapid-fire delivery, which inspired the late Robert Altman’s directorial style; and those sleek, smart, bewitching Hawks women, almost all of whom try to seduce the hero to one degree or another.  I know I’ve said this elsewhere, too, and I still mean it: I want to be a Howard Hawks kind of woman when I grow up!

Screenwriter Jules Furthman (from the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty; Nightmare Alley; Rio Bravo) and novelist/screenwriter William Faulkner (The Big Sleep; The Long Hot Summer; Intruder in the Dust) were no slouches in the excitement department when it came to crafting entertaining movies!  Our story starts in: “Martinique in the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France.”  Meet Harry Morgan (not to be confused with the co-star of the TV version of M*A*S*H), a rugged fisherman for hire (the ever-awesome Humphrey Bogart of The Big Sleep; Across the Pacific; All Through the Night).  World War 2 is on, and Martinique is Vichy-controlled, so it’s not exactly the most carefree place in the world.  War is Hell indeed!  Harry and his first mate, Horatio (Sir Lancelot), charter fishing boats for tourists.  Harry’s current client, Mr. Johnson (Walter Sande of Don Winslow of the Navy; The Blue Dahlia; Detective Mathews in the Boston Blackie movies), is a handful. 

Johnson is an inept fisherman who blames others for his careless and expensive mistakes, as well as being a cheapskate and a whiner.  Right now, he’s complaining about Harry’s longtime friend Eddie (three-time Oscar-winner Walter Brennan from Come and Get It; Kentucky; The Westerner; and the hit 1957 TV series The Real McCoys).  Apparently Eddie’s cheerful blathering is getting on Johnson’s nerves—aw, poor baby, our hearts bleed for you!  Hey, if Harry and Horatio can shrug off Johnson’s whiny personality—not to mention losing the rod and reel due to his ineptitude—he should be able to put up with Eddie’s gabbiness and occasional mistakes (which our hero matter-of-factly sets right).  Eddie can’t help it, though, with his alcoholism:

Johnson:  “I don't see why you want that rummy around.”
Harry:  “Eddie was a good man on a boat before he got to be a rummy.”
Johnson:  “Well, he's no good now... What do you look after him for?"
Harry:  “He thinks he’s lookin’ after me.”

So since then, Harry has taken Eddie under his wing, looking after Eddie as if he was an addled but endearing old dad.  Harry’s kindness to Eddie endeared me to him right away.  Note that even with Eddie’s issues, he’s still more capable on the boat than bumbling "Blame Game" Johnson, who comes mighty close to getting tossed overboard when Johnson tries to get tough with Eddie (“Are you a good swimmer, Mr. Johnson?”)! TH&HN has terrific atmosphere, thanks to Charles Novi’s Art Direction, Casey Roberts’ Set Decoration, and Sid Hickcox’ cinematography.

I like the AMC Website’s response to Eddie's recurring Dada-esque question: 
“Was you ever bit by a dead bee...a honey bee?”  It’s a perfect Rorschach-style personality character test for every character that crosses Eddie’s path.  Harry, of course, understands Eddie, so they’ve long since passed the “Dead Bee” test with flying colors.  If Eddie’s question triggers confusion, impatience, and/or anger from others, we know these people are, if not full-tilt villains, then at the very least, they’re not Harry’s kind of people (or ours)! “Frenchy” Gerard (Marcel Dalio from Grand Illusion; Sabrina; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), a member of the French Resistance, offers Harry big bucks to smuggle a good-guy member of the French Resistance out of the country.  Being no fool, Harry sticks his head out for no one.  But then along comes a woman who’s just checked in at Frenchy’s hotel:  the sulky and sultry Marie Browning, played by native New Yorker and model-turned-actress Lauren Bacall in a film debut that puts the “WOW!” in the “Wow Factor”! 

Although Marie seems cool, calm, and insolent, she’s actually living by her wits, starting with cozying up to the unsuspecting  Johnson in the café and picking the big boob’s pocket.  Granted, Johnson is getting a little too hands-on with Marie, but Harry isn’t letting her get away with it:  “You ought to pick on someone to steal from who doesn’t owe me money.”  Lucky for Harry, our gal Marie gains Harry’s trust when Johnson gets tripped up by his own lies about being penniless until the next day, when in fact Johnson was all set to hop a plane at dawn!   But no sooner does Johnson begin to sheepishly sign his Traveler's Cheques than gunfire rings out in the café, leaving the joint in a mess and Johnson dead in the crossfire.  As Harry says, “He couldn’t write any faster than he could duck.  Another minute and his cheques would have been good.”  Thanks to that vile Vichy gunfire, both Harry and Marie are in the soup, and we don’t just mean vichyssoise!   Now the slimy Vichy Captain Reynard (Dan Seymour from Key Largo; Johnny Belinda; The Way We Were) and Lt. Coyo (Sheldon Leonard, who went from supporting roles like Another Thin  Man in the movies to becoming a wildly successful TV producer) have Harry and Marie over a barrel. 

 

Actual dialogue from the film: 
“He couldn’t write any faster than he could duck. 
Another minute and his chequewould have been good.”

Harry can tell that Marie’s life hasn’t been a bed of roses, unless you count the thorns; during Reynard’s grilling, Marie takes a slap in the face without batting an eye.  She admits she’s trying to get home to the States: “I’d walk, if it wasn’t for all that water.”  In the great Hawks tradition, Harry and Marie get closer, including cool pet names: “Steve” for Harry, and “Slim” for Marie—which were actually Mrs. and  Mrs. Howard Hawks’ pet names for each other in real life!  The mating dance between “Steve” and “Slim” is tantalizing, yet still yields Harry’s better instincts as he agrees to help Marie get back home in exchange for smuggling Frenchy’s refugee friends. Well, they say that adversity brings people together in hard times, so our heroes have no choice but to help Frenchy and his Resistance allies, and help Marie in the bargain.

Cricket and Slim make beautiful music together at the café!

French Resistance Fighter Paul deBursac (Walter Szurovy, a.k.a. Walter Molnar) boards Harry’s boat, with a new last-minute passenger:  his wife, Hellene (Dolores Moran from The Ghost Breakers; Old Acquaintance; The Horn Blows at Midnight).  Staying calm and paying attention doesn’t seem to be the deBursacs’ strong suit:  despite Harry’s warnings to just get flat on the deck and stay there, that peacenik Paul shouts out, “Don’t shoot!”  All he gets for his trouble is a bullet in the shoulder, though Harry gets them to land and safety.  When they get back, Harry discovers our gal “Slim” has found a sweet gig as a chanteuse at the café, just goes to show you can’t keep a great gal down!  And not a moment too soon; turns out Frenchy snuck the injured Paul in the cellar so jack-of-all-trades Harry could operate on our little Freedom Fighter in peace—especially when well-meaning but overprotective Mme. deBursac accidentally knocks herself out with the chloroform she was supposed to use to operate on Paul.  Well, at least now we can get Paul healed in peace and quiet!  Boy, Harry can’t seem to get a moment to himself!  He’s tangling with bad guys, beautiful women, French resistance fighters, lovable (albeit needy) alcoholic sidekicks—sheesh, the man can’t seem to get a moment to himself!  He needs a “Do Not Disturb” sign!

Two’s company and a gaggle of Resistance Fighters
is a crowd when "Slim" and "Steve" are interrupted's
 by Frenchy and his Resistance pals!

It’s been said that Hawks got his nose out of joint for a time because Hawks wanted Bacall all to himself, to no avail.  *Tsk tsk!* No point being greedy, Hawks, especially since he already had a charming and lovely wife at home!  But beautiful Dolores Moran could surely have been a fine runner-up as Mme. deBursac, even if her character  was often more of a hindrance than a help in her well-meaning but overbearing way.  In real life, Dolores Moran had a reputation for going around with well-known married Hollywood heavyweights, as well as supporting parts in The Ghost Breakers; Old Acquaintance; and The Horn Blows at Midnight.

Will the lovely and well-meaning but maddeningly

overprotective Hellene deBursac turn out to be Hell on wheels? 

“Harry, you was ‘fraid I’d get hurt.  You was thinkin’ of me!” 

"That’s right, Eddie, this is all about you.  Now let me steer before we crash into a luxury liner or Nazis, will ya?!"

 

 Mme. de Bursac goofs and ends up knocking herself out with Harry’s chloroform. 
Thank goodness, we thought that dame would never shut up! 

Here’s the complimentary breakfast we give Freedom Fighters in our charming café. 
Now scram, toots, and let “Steve” and me catch up on our nookie! 

Bacall wasn’t the only one making a film debut in TH&HN; so was Oscar-winning singer/songwriter Hoagy Carmichael (for Here Comes the Groom; Starlight; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes),  playing piano man Cricket at the café.  In fact, the catchy background music at the café makes me wonder if anyone considered making this a Broadway musical.  I’d see it if I had the dough!

Whether Bogart and Bacall are being playful or serious onscreen (or offscreen, for that matter), the sparks between them are hotter than July 4th fireworks—and nobody even had to get naked, at least onscreen!

To Have and Have Not: When Bogie Met Baby

It’s funny to think the movie version of To Have and Have Not (TH&HN) came about as a wager between producer/director Howard Hawks and author Ernest Hemingway!   According to TCM’s John Miller, Hawks was trying to persuade his Nobel Prize-winning author pal Hemingway to try screenwriting.  Hemingway balked, saying most of his writing was unfilmable.  Hawks wouldn’t give up that easily, boasting that he could make a good film out of what he considered Hemingway’s worst novel: “That bunch of junk To Have and Have Not.”  From what I’ve heard about “Papa” Hemingway, I would’ve expected those fellas to duke it out at that point, but Hemingway was up to the challenge.  Jules Furthman banged out a screenplay, turning “that bunch of junk” into an exciting, sexy, totally irresistible adventure with what turned out to be one of the best romantic teams in movie history, onscreen and off-screen! 

Mary Astor Blogathon - The Palm Beach Story: The Subject Was “Snoodles”

This post is part of the Mary Astor Blogathon, hosted by Tales of the Easily Distracted and Silver Screenings, running from May 3rd through May 10th, 2013!

Ah, how times and mores change over the decades!  Consider this:

1.)  In 1942, writer/director Preston Sturges brought us The Palm Beach Story (TPBS, a riff on the 1940 comedy The Philadelphia Story), in which a young couple find themselves living beyond their means and about to be evicted from their New York City duplex apartment.  As potential renters circle the couple like vultures, one would-be renter, an elderly gent, takes a liking to the young wife.

The older man turns out to be “The Wienie King…Home of the Texas Wienie.” (Make your own naughty jokes here, as needed.)  And he’s loaded—with money, not just wienies!  Despite the wife’s kind but firm no-thank-yous, the older man is touched by the young couple’s financial predicament, and gives her $700, which went a long way back then!  He doesn’t want to bed down with our heroine or get into any indecent proposals; he just wants to give these crazy kids a hand, not a handout!

Got them to the church on time—eventually!

 2.)  Now fast-forward to Adrien Lyne’s much-discussed 1993 drama Indecent Proposal.  This time, the helpful wealthy stranger wants to have sex with lovely young Wifey for a million dollars!  Granted, most folks would probably consider Indecent Proposal’s co-star Robert Redford to be a lot sexier than TPBS supporting actor Robert Dudley (scene-stealer though he is), but even when comparing the mores of both the early 1940s and the mid-1990s, as well as today’s attitudes, there are gals out there who’d gladly hop in the sack with Redford, or with Dudley’s Wienie King, for that matter. For many people, money talks!  As for me, I’ll take The Palm Beach Story anytime; all told, it’s got way more laughs and far less agita!  Indeed, audiences embraced TPBS as a welcome tonic to the downbeat war movies focusing on combat and troubled families shattered by war.  Who could blame moviegoers for wanting to laugh?  Hey, it worked for another great Sturges hit, Sullivan’s Travels!

Scenes from a marriage ceremony?!

For all its American-ness, TPBS feels to me like both a French farce and a surreal lunatic 1940s version of Christopher Nolan’s thriller Memento (2000).  Claudette Colbert is first seen tied up in a muffler that Doctor Who would envy.  Then she’s shoved into a closet, and apparently there’s another Claudette Colbert who kicks her way out. All the while, their maid keeps fainting with each new unexpected version of our heroine. Meanwhile, bridegroom Joel McCrea is scrambling to get himself to the church on time, as is our heroine on the other side of New York City.  What the Sam Hill is going on?!  Luckily, Entertainment Weekly’s Keith Staskiewicz explains it all for us, courtesy of http://popwatch.ew.com/author/keithstaskiewicz/

“Preston Sturges had one of the most impressive runs of any writer-director:  In a span of five years, he produced more classic comedies than most do in a lifetime. That easily includes this hilarious, Hays Code-testing film about love and marriage, but it should also include a film he didn't make, the finale of which we glimpse at the start of The Palm Beach Story.  As the opening credits roll, we see a madcap dash to the altar involving not only stars Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert, but also their respective twins, as well as a series of accidental switcheroos. Only Sturges would be so wackily brilliant as to start his movie with the conclusion of another, and then tie them both perfectly together once more at the end.”

Our heroine gets no kick
from matrimony, Sturges-style!

Well, that explains that, at least for the nonce!  I guess that also explains why Tom and Gerry (appropriate names for a screwball comedy couple) apparently gave their maid her walking papers, or maybe the poor frazzled woman ran screaming from the Jeffers’ employ; it takes stamina to work in a screwball comedy!  Since Tom and Gerry finally made it to the altar, I bet Gerry’s twin also finally left in a huff or some other form of transportation.  Or maybe getting tied up in a thick muffler left Gerry’s twin with second thoughts: “If this is marriage, you can keep it!  I’m gonna live happily ever after with my dozen cats!  Here, kitty, kitty….”  Anyway, our lovebirds finally got married and lived happily ever after!  Or did they? 

TPBS is an irresistible blend of screwball comedy and surprisingly tender romance, with a great cast of Preston Sturges’ zanies.  Actually, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther resisted it with a vengeance, but I think he might have been the only one.  Besides, Crowther was a mercurial kind of guy anyway; there’s just no pleasing some people!  But whether they’re happy or sad or freaking out, the characters really get an emotional workout.  Sure, it’s mostly laugh-out-loud funny, but you can also feel the characters’ anxiety beneath their witty repartee, making me sympathize with them.  Even now in 2013, our country’s financial issues make it easy to sympathize with Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea from Sullivan’s Travels; Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent; Ride the High Country) and his wife Gerry (Claudette Colbert from It Happened One Night; It’s A Wonderful World; So Proudly We Hail!)

Meet The Wienie King, 
Fairy Godfather-type! Who knew?

Murder, My Sweet's Mrs. Florian is in the chips;
now she's after the Jeffers' joint
as Franklin Pangborn dithers!

Tom and Gerry have been happy with each other for the past 5 years, but they’ve also  faced lean financial times. (As a native New Yorker, I can’t remember a time when The Big Apple WASN’T an expensive town!)  Tom and Gerry still love each other (even when they try to convince themselves they're not), but right now, they’re not exactly thrilled about the high cost of living in a Manhattan duplex!  I bet Tom’s the type who won’t let his wife work; it’s probably a pride thing for him, especially during that era.  If only Tom could get his floating airport off the ground!  Well, that’s where the aforementioned Wienie King (played by scene-stealing Sturges stalwart Robert Dudley from The Lady Eve; The Sin of Harold Diddlebock; The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek) comes in—right into the couple’s bathroom, in fact!  It’s OK, he’s just checking out his potential new home, like any savvy real estate prospect would:  “I'm the Wienie King!  Invented the Texas Wienie!  Lay off 'em, you'll live longer.” 

While Tom is out trying to interest prospects in his revolutionary airport,The Wienie King’s garrulous wife (Esther Howard of Murder, My Sweet; Detour; Born to Kill) cases the Jeffers’ joint while Gerry and the Wienie King chat.   It becomes clear that although The Wienie King is half-deaf, he’s also all heart and deep pockets!  He has the kindness and the means to give Gerry a lucky financial break.  Gerry keeps spurning the dough, but The Wienie King won’t take “No!” for an answer, so despite her protests, The Wienie King gives her $700 (big bucks back then!) to pay off the couple’s debts. Gerry gratefully gives The Wienie King a kiss on the cheek, then uses the money to pay off all their overdue bills.  Happy days are here again!

Tom and Gerry's love is sole-deep!

Or are they?  When Tom comes home and finds out about The Wienie King’s generous windfall, he’s peeved instead of grateful, letting his pride mess with him.  We see Tom has a history of giving the heave-ho to any man Gerry gets friendly with—and we really mean only friendly, no hanky-panky.  But when Gerry turns on her natural charm, Tom votes with his fists (only with guys, not Gerry).  Just out of curiosity and empathy, I’d love to know more about how Gerry and Tom got themselves in such dire financial straits after 5 otherwise happy years together.  Was it because of World War 2, or were Tom and Gerry unwittingly careless with their money, as many young married couples have been? (Even Vinnie and I had tight financial times in our younger days, like many others in today’s economy; no shame in it if you learn from your mistakes, like we did.)  Goshdarnit, Sturges has me caring about those wacky lovebirds!  Where the heck is Spellbound’s Dr. Constance Petersen when you need her?

Too bad those crazy kids didn’t get some kind of budget counseling (presuming such things existed back then) before the couple’s ensuing nutzoid hijinks became necessary, but otherwise, we wouldn’t have a movie!   If Tom would get over his stupid jealousy and misplaced pride, and let backers at least give Gerry a discreet, tasteful flash of leg like she did in another Colbert classic, It Happened One Night, Tom and Gerry’s problems would be fixed in a jiffy!  Admittedly, I’m no aviation expert; does anyone reading this post know if Tom Jeffers’ floating airport could have worked in the real world (the real world of 1942, at least)?

So our lovebirds have a heart-to-heart talk about the situation:

Tom:  “We’ll get ahead someday.”

Gerry:  “But I don’t want it ‘someday.’  I want it now, while I can still enjoy it.  Anyway, men don’t get smarter as they grow older, they just lose their hair…I’m very tired of being broke, darling, and feeling so helpless about having my hands tied.  I could have helped you so many times, but every time I tried to, you tried to punch the man in the nose."

Heartbroken yet determined, Gerry decides there’s only one solution:  she must go to Palm Beach, Florida, where millionaires meet millionairesses and marry them, living happily and wealthily ever after.  If all goes well, whatever new millionaire falls in love with Gerry and wants to marry her will be able to fund Tom’s revolutionary airport.  Granted, neither Tom nor Gerry can afford a divorce, but she figures whatever new rich hubby she finds will surely cough up dough for said divorce, and make his airport dream a beautiful reality.  Only in the movies! 

100 (or so) drunk Ale & Quail Clubbers and a girl!

Of course, Tom doesn’t want any part of this hare-brained scheme, but once Gerry accidentally sticks a farewell note in her hubby’s rump via safety pin after their tipsy night of love, the chase is on, and hilarity ensues, Sturges-style!  Tom does his best to catch up with Gerry, but she reaches Pennsylvania Station (Penn Station, as it’s called today) first. Still, all isn’t lost yet, thanks to The Wienie King, bless him.  Mr. and Mrs. Wienie King have rented the Jeffers’ duplex, and he also he gave Tom money to go and catch up with Gerry, and nobody had to get punched in the nose, at least not yet!

At Pennsylvania Station, Gerry stands around looking like a foundling waif (a well-dressed waif, granted) until a group of wacky rich hunters calling themselves The Ale and Quail Club take Gerry under their collective wing and into their private railroad car.  The First Ale & Quail member (William Demarest, another Sturges stalwart from The Great McGinty and The Lady Eve) is peeved at having to put up with dames in his hunting car, but the rest of the gents take a shine to her, dubbing her their mascot.  Gerry doesn’t get much sleep, though, what with the happy hunters alternately trying to sing Gerry to sleep, using the Club Car for target practice, and disconnecting the Club Car when the conductors get fed up with the drunken dopes.  It’s pandemonium in the funniest sense! 

The Ale & Quail Club puts on the dogs!

Luckily, the good-natured bespectacled gent who ends up stranded along with Gerry is none other than millionaire John D. Hackensacker 3rd (Rudy Vallee, crooner and actor, who’d also starred in George White’s Scandals; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; Live A Little, Love a Little with Elvis Presley; and of course, many Sturges comedies).  Kind, chivalrous, deep-pocketed John falls in love with Gerry, taking great pleasure in buying her gifts, jewelry, and gorgeous fashions by Irene, kinda like a far more cheerful, upbeat version of Vertigo. It looks like smooth sailing for Gerry and her hopes of getting John to fund Tom’s airport.  Considering how generous he is to Gerry, I’m surprised John isn’t into tipping, claiming “It’s un-American.”  Then again, maybe that’s why he's fabulously wealthy while Tom and Gerry have been struggling. I must say I admire John’s thriftiness and generosity, inside and out, and he did bestow help and gifts on our heroes when they were up against it. Maybe Tom and Gerry could learn something from him?  What’s your opinion?  We’d like to know!

And then there's Maude, a.k.a. The Princess Centimilla!
(Our birthday girl Mary Astor!)

We got us a speedboat, it seats about twenty...

John’s sister Maude, a.k.a. The Princess Centimillia, (our gal Mary Astor from The Maltese Falcon; Across the Pacific; and Best Supporting Actress Oscar-winner for The Great Lie), likes Gerry instantly:  “We can look for new husbands together!”  Maude is also delighted to see how happy Gerry has already made “Snoodles,” as she affectionately calls her brother.  Ironically, our Ms. Astor wasn’t crazy about her own performance in TPBS, and for the life of me, I can’t imagine why.  As far as I’m concerned, Mary steals the show; heck, I think she deserved another Best Supporting Actress Oscar for TPBS!  It’s too bad that she didn’t appreciate her own wonderful performance as much as the rest of us do.  She's got terrific comic timing, looked lovely in her stylish Irene fashions, and she looks fabulous as a blonde. I can well imagine that a gal like Maude would probably enjoy trying different hairstyles and haircolors, a la Auntie Mame.

But whango, is Gerry ever surprised when Tom turns up on the dock at sunny West Palm Beach, with roses yet!  (My late mom and stepdad lived about an hour’s drive or so from West Palm Beach, and we had plenty of vacation fun in the sun during our visits to their home!  But I digress…)  Blindsided by Tom’s passionate kiss, Gerry quickly introduces Tom as her brother, “Captain McGloo” so as not to give the scheme away:

Gerry: “I thought your mother’s maiden name was McGloo.” 
Tom:  “That was McGrew!”)

And so, the gals’ husband-hunting gets underway.  With both playfulness and determination, Maude takes quite a liking to Tom (“I grow on people…like moss.”), to the frustration of perennial houseguest Toto (Sig Arno from of On Moonlight Bay; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Up in Arms with Danny Kaye.)  Arno steals his scenes armed only with indecipherable gibberish and natural zaniness. This makes Gerry all the more frustrated when the loving but frustrated Tom won’t play along (not that this stops the irrepressible Maude).  Even supporting players steal the show here! 

Here's one of my favorite scenes between Maude and "Snoodles" regarding Gerry:

Maude : “Why don’t you marry her?  She’s lovely.” 

John:  “In the first place, she isn’t free yet.  In the second place, you don’t marry someone you just met.  At least, I don’t.”
Maude:  “But that’s the only way, dear.  If you get to know too much about them, you’d never marry them….nothing is permanent in this world except Roosevelt...”

The Palm Beach Story is a "bundle" of joy! Just ask Princess Maude and company!

Truly, TPBS is one of the zaniest yet endearing comedies yet in movie history!  Watch and enjoy!

Team Bartilucci Double-Feature: The Power and the Formicidae

Team Bartilucci brings you a new double-feature! Telekinesis and giant insects - what's not to like?  Enjoy!
Vinnie: The Power (1968)
George Pal is certainly a name you associate with science fiction, but not with paranoia thrillers.  But he served as producer of this smart and tight little thriller from the late sixties about a man with amazing power, and the horrors he inflicts on a group of rocket scientists.

Based on a novel by Frank M. Robinson, it stars George Hamilton as Jim Tanner, a scientist at a think tank experimenting on the limits of human endurance, in preparation for the rigors of space travel.  At a meeting, Professor Hallson (Arthur O'Connell) is in a near-frenzy, insisting that the lab's recent aptitude tests revealed that one of the team has, well, you should forgive the lift, but powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.  The tests, alas, were anonymous, so there's no way to know WHO the amazing genetic freak is, just that they exist.  When it's suggested they all try to use their mental faculties to spin a piece of paper skewered on a pencil, they are all surprised to see the paper begin to budge, then spin, and eventually burst into flame.

Theories fly thick and fast as to who among them could wield such ability.  But when Jim and and his colleague and lover Professor Margery Lansing (Suzanne Pleshette from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and the 1970s version of TV's The Bob Newhart Show) find Hallson dead in the centrifuge (after a chilling scene in his office), it becomes clear that someone is out to quash any evidence of this miracle-person's existence. Tanner is quickly targeted by the mysterious someone - the police suspect he's behind Hallson's murder, and mysteriously, his credentials suddenly turn up as fraudulent.  Walking the streets, he begins to hallucinate, similarly to the way we saw Hallson being tortured in his office.  He assumes that this mysterious figure is after him next, and decides the best way to fight back is to learn more about him. All he has is a name Hallson scrawled on a scrap of paper..."Adam Hart".

Arthur O'Connell throws the world's most horrific Gookie.
(Click to see un-happified image)

Traveling to Hallson's hometown, he learns that Hart was a childhood friend of his, and everyone in the town remembers him...differently.  A woman in the cafe remembers his icy blue eyes, but Hallson's parents recall him to have black eyes, to match his hair.  One fellow in the town, finding out that Jim is asking after Hart, tries to kill him...just as Adam had told him to do, ten years before.

Returning to California, Jim finds out the rest of the science team have been quite nervous indeed.  And oddly, almost every one of them seem to think he's the mysterious man with the Power.  Professor Scott (Earl Holliman (EARL HOLLIMAN!)) offers to become his toady if he'll just let him be near him, and Professor Melincker (Nehemiah Persoff) comes at him with a knife when Jim comes to visit him.  They're half right - he's not the film's bad guy, but in a confrontation with the film's villain (whose name shall be left unmentioned in an attempt to leave some modicum of suspense about the film), it's revealed that Tanner is as genetically advanced as Mr. Hart.

"You'll have to excuse my friend, he's just dead."
Miss Beverly Hills cannot help Nehemiah Persoff;
he's fallen to THE POWER!

Once the big secret is spilled at the film's climax, many things throughout the film make much more sense.  As Hamilton makes his way through the film, women seem to throw themselves at him.  Even Yvonne deCarlo (of TV's The Munsters and film noir fame), playing Hallson's widow, hangs all over him when he visits her.  It's said that Adam had the same effect on women, so even before he knows about his power, women seem to sense his superiority.  It's somewhat similar to Remo Williams in the Destroyer novels - his Sinanju training makes him almost irresistible to women, and at the same time renders him almost apathetic about them.  It also explains how he's able to survive Hart's numerous attempts to kill him, and the various hallucinations he sees near the start of the film, where the phrase "Don't Run" appears in the background.  His unconscious mind is trying to reach out to him and let him know he's got the stones to beat Hart.

The film is tense, and keeps the pressure up.  From the opening shot, where the time of the film is given as "tomorrow," the film stays grounded in at least plausibility, if not true reality.  The score by Miklos Rosza is a classic, featuring what may be the only use of a hammered dulcimer in a thriller soundtrack.  The makeup by William Tuttle is impressive for the time, including quite a grisly look for O'Connell after an 8G ride in the centrifuge.

Get out of the tank, George; your tan will fade and your suit will wrinkle.

The Power was released by Warner Archives as part of their impressive print on demand DVD line.  It's well worth a look.

Dorian:  THEM! (1954) Uncle Milton Doesn’t Sell an Ant Farm That Big!

In the deliciously sneaky tradition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), THEM! begins as a suspenseful police procedural, starting with a little girl of maybe 5 or 6 years old, wandering alone on a lonely New Mexico road.  She’s in a wide-eyed state of shock, not saying a word.  As a mom myself, I was already hooked, as anxious as if the poor dazed kid were my own child, especially when it becomes clear that this child is the sole survivor of some kind of truly bloody, horrific attack — but what kind?

THEM! pulls the rug out from under you as it morphs into an eye-popping, edge-of-your-seat Big Bug monster movie, one of the best ever made!  You see a body or two…you hear yelling and screaming (the Wilhelm Scream, to be specific… You don’t see the monster just yet, but when you do…

I’d first heard of THEM! director Gordon Douglas back when I was a little tyke growing up in the Bronx. Back then, The 4:30 Movie was aired Monday through Friday, often shown in two parts, serial-style.  If I recall correctly, that was how I first saw both The Power and THEM!, as well as the Bond-style spy adventure In Like Flint (1967), as well as my dad’s favorite Frank Sinatra movies, Tony Rome (1967); The Detective and Lady in Cement (both in 1968).  Ironically, Douglas actually got his start as a child actor in Hal Roach’s comedies, and grew up to be a gag writer for Our Gang before he became a movie director!  Anyway, back in the Bronx, Mom and Dad always steered little me back to the G-rated films and TV shows in the next room, leaving me to wait to learn about Sinatra’s tough-guy roles in my early teens instead. 

Director of Photography Sid Hickox (The Big Sleep; White Heat; Dark Passage; and a great many TV series) gives THEM! a feeling of both film noir and docudrama, with suspense to spare!  Douglas and Company take just enough time to whet your appetite for the inevitable Big Reveal, with weird piercing noises here…and mangled bodies there….

You can lose your mind
when coppers are two of a kind!

You couldn’t beat this superb cast of great character actors with ant swatters!  Many of the stars eventually became award winners and nominees over time:

·      * As Sgt. Ben Peterson, who first finds the child known only as “The Ellinson Girl” (Sandy Drescher, also in Space Children):  James Whitmore from The Asphalt Jungle; Oklahoma!; Give ‘Em Hell, Harry!, for which he earned an Best Actor Oscar nomination. Also, that’s William Schallert of The Patty Duke Show playing the ambulance driver.

•  As FBI Agent Robert Graham:  James Arness, who went from playing The Thing from Another World, to the classic war film Battleground, to Marshal Matt Dillon in TV’s long-running Western Gunsmoke.
• As Dr. Harold Medford: Edmund Gwenn,  Oscar-winner for Miracle on 34^th Street; and super supporting actor in Alfred Hitchcock’s  Foreign Correspondent and The Trouble with Harry.
• As Dr. Patricia “Pat” Medford:  Joan Weldon, actress/singer in So This is Love; Deep in My Heart; Home Before Dark.
• As Brigadier General Robert O'Brien, Onslow Stevens of Night Has a Thousand Eyes; House of Dracula; Angel on My Shoulder.
• As Major Kibbee:  Sean McClory from The Quiet Man; Storm Warning; Niagara (albeit uncredited for some reason); as well as many TV appearances.

But who—or what—on earth killed the rest of the Ellinson family?  The only clues are the doomed family’s wrecked trailer. (If only they’d gone to Disneyland like everyone else!)  The trailer looks like a tornado destroyed it (someone better put out an APB on The Wicked Witch of the West!), and there are torn, bloody sacks of both granulated sugar, and sugar cubes.  Is the killer a madman with a raging sweet tooth?  Ironically, Ellinson was an FBI agent, but he wasn’t on a case.  He was simply vacationing with his family, including two other kids.  Poor Ellinson and his family couldn’t have imagined the terrible fate that awaited them, whatever the hell it was!

If Marshal Diilon, Harry Truman, and Kris Kringle
can't destroy those giant ants, nobody can!

The FBI gets involved when Agent Robert Graham (Arness) from their Alamogordo office comes to help.  The autopsy of another murdered local, Old Man Johnson, shows that Johnson was put through the wringer, big-time: broken neck and back, crushed chest, fractured skull, and here’s the kicker: “He had enough formic acid in him to kill 20 men!”  Yikes!  But it gives Dr. Medford an idea to help snap the kid out of it.  He waves a vial of formic acid under her nose, and quickly gets horrifying, heart-wrenching results as the poor child shrieks and sobs, “THEM! THEM!”

My cheeky wisecracks notwithstanding, THEM! put a pang in my heart because of the human factor.  I was so moved by Ben’s gentle kindness to the poor little Ellinson girl.  The characters are genuine people you can sympathize and empathize with.  For me in particular as a mom, I couldn’t help getting weepy when families were killed or left as widows and/or orphans. We have the superb character actors to thank for breathing life into THEM! and making an already great horror movie film something truly special. The script by screenwriters Russell S. Hughes and Ted Sherdeman, based on a story by the great George Worthing Yates, blends wry humor with genuine poignancy, not to mention suspense and jumbo-size creepy critters!  The whole cast won me over, with everyone getting memorable moments of fear, drama, and playful wit that had me caring about these characters.  Indeed, both the father and daughter Medfords let down their hair (Professor Medford’s thinning hair notwithstanding), and are soon calling each other Pat and Bob—but don’t worry, nobody’s forgotten about those murderous giant ants!  (How could they?  Where could you possibly hide them?).

We see lovely Dr. Patricia Medford
is getting a leg up on the mystery!

By the way, Edith Head designed the costumes, and Joan Weldon in particular arrives in a smart, tasteful Moss Mabry outfit when they arrive; it goes great with her desert safety goggles!  I especially got a kick out of Dr. Medford Sr. trying to get the hang of the helicopter radio.  Also, as a Perry Mason fan, I enjoyed seeing character actor Olin Howland (billed here as “Howlin,” also known to me from the 1930s Perry Mason movies on TCM) as the alcoholic in the mental hospital who wants our heroes to "Make me a Sergeant, charge the booze!"  Bronislau Kaper's music (Auntie Mame) orchestrations by Robert Franklyn and Ray Heindorf (Wonder Man) is both sweeping and suspenseful, working perfectly for THEM’s rollercoaster of emotions, especially for those who’ve been in real-life horrors, like many people we know who experienced the tragedy of New York City on September 11^th, 2001.  It sure makes you thankful that THEM! is only a movie!

Those crazy kids & their hippie LSD sugar cube parties! 
Hey, wait, it's 1954 and LSD hasn't been invented yet!

Vinnie stirs the anthill:  The "Wilhelm" scream first appeared in the 1951 film Distant Drums, and was used as a simple stock effect for decades.  It's named after a character from a later film, The Charge at Feather River.  It's appeared in over 200 films, but it wasn't until sound engineer Ben Burtt found them and started using them as a running gag in the Star Wars films, and then the Indiana Jones films, etc., that it became a pop culture thing.

I say "it" but it's actually "they" - there are several screams that are part of the Wilhelm 'library", and THEM! uses them liberally.  The one universally known as "the" Wilhelm scream is seen in clip three below.


The scream(s) are generally credited to pop singer Sheb Wooley, he of "Purple People Eater" fame.  But regardless of who made them, they're as important a part of recyclable entertainment history as those three rocks on Star Trek.